


Respite

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: teen wolf bingo! [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Christmas, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6119698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime in between hiding from the roamers and waiting out the winter, Derek, Stiles, and Braeden find some time to celebrate Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Respite

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 'zombie apocalypse' square on my Teen Wolf Bingo card!

It’s Christmas. Or at least it's _close_ to Christmas. Derek has been trying to keep track of the days since the world suddenly turned upside down, but there have been some days where he'd forgotten to add another line to the small piece of paper tucked into his now useless wallet. Those are the days where just being alive enough to grab a snatch of sleep was a victory. 

So he’s definitely a little behind. For all he knows, it might already be the new year. 

His idea of where they are is just as skewed; all he knows is that they're somewhere between Spokane and Seattle. They'd driven past the former on the interstate, but that was over a week ago. Braeden had crept past it, weaving their truck around the numerous crashed vehicles littering the highway like abandoned toys. There’d been great pillars of dark smoke rising from the city and the air was thick and toxic, the chemicals borne into their mouths and noises by the winter winds. As they continued to move, Stiles had leaned over Derek to stare out the passenger seat, eyes huge and wide and hollowed, uncharacteristically silent. 

“Do you think we could get supplies in there?” he’d finally asked, fingers drumming against the handle of the nail studded baseball bat tucked between his legs. 

“If we go in there, we won’t make it out,” Braeden had replied, nudging a compact car out of their path. The air momentarily rang with the screech of metal against metal and Derek had automatically gone on high alert, watching the ditches for any signs of movement. 

“We just have to make it through a few more hours,” she'd continued. “Then we’ll be fine. For awhile.” 

After that, it had been a journey down dirt roads that got progressively rougher and narrower until they were really nothing more than rutted paths. By the time they finally pulled into the front yard of what had once been a farmhouse, it had started to snow. Tiny snowflakes melted in their hair and against their tongues as they’d quickly (and silently) moved all of their supplies from the truck into the house, which Derek understood to be one of Braeden’s old safehouses for when she needed to drop off the grid for awhile. 

They’d nailed the back door shut and barricaded every window with boards tore from the leaning, dilapidated barn behind the house. That was a week ago. 

The place is filled with supplies. In addition to the barn, there’s a large pile of wood stacked against the side of the house, which they’ve been using to fill the fireplace that dominates the living room. The kitchen is well stocked with canned goods and thanks to the array of solar panels on the roof, they’ve managed to gather enough sunlight to have a few quick showers. 

Derek had forgotten how nice it felt to be clean. 

But although the place is secure, for all intents and purposes, their guard is still up. Too many close calls have resulted in a constant state of vigilance. More often than not, the house is filled with silence as they sit around the fire, flipping through a book plucked off one of the many bookcases or staring out the windows at the snow that continues to fall intermittently. Derek doesn’t sleep longer than four hours at a time and there's an ax sitting beside the stairs at all times, just in case roamers manage to smash their way in and they can't get out to the truck in time. 

(Not that Derek thinks that’s going to be a issue any time soon; in the week that’s passed, he’s seen no more than half a dozen of them. They’d moved slowly, blue gray skin stretched taut over jutting bones, large chunks of their flesh missing. One of them had even been crawling, broken legs hanging uselessly behind it as it pulled itself across the back yard. 

It’d taken two hours to disappear into the trees surrounding the house. Derek didn't take his eyes off it until it was gone.)

Aside from the feeling in Derek's mind that says it's Christmas, their evening in the safehouse feels like all the others. Stiles is sitting almost dangerously close to the fire, wrapped up in one of Derek’s sweaters, flipping through a dogeared novel. Braeden is right beside him, leaning against Stiles’ shoulder, thoroughly cleaning one of the dozens of guns that they found scattered around the house. Her toned arms, bare under the straps of her black tank top, are littered with still healing bruises and scratches. 

Derek is lying on the couch underneath the window, sweating even in a tank and thin sweatpants. The intertwined sounds of Braeden and Stiles’ heartbeats are almost enough to lull him to sleep, but he makes an effort to listen past them, past the roar and crackle of the fire, to the noises outside the house. Right now, there’s nothing but the whistle of the wind through the trees and the soft _thump_ of snow falling off the roof, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be roamers lurking somewhere nearby, just out of earshot, waiting to catch them off guard while they’re sleeping. 

“Derek?” 

The touch of a hand against his knee brings him back into the room. When he glances over, Braeden is looking at him with one eyebrow raised, paused in the midst of reassembling a shotgun the length of her arm. 

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly. Derek doesn’t remember the last time any of them spoke at a volume above a loud whisper, and he can’t help but wonder if it’s going to cause permanent damage to their vocal cords. 

“Yeah,” he replies, forcing his mouth into a smile. “I’m fine.” 

“This book is ridiculous,” Stiles mutters, flipping the book closed and tossing it across the room towards a crooked stack of other books he's deemed ridiculous. “I should have grabbed some comics when we stopped at that library.” 

That makes something click in Derek’s mind and he remembers the small bag tucked underneath their bed, the bag he’s been trying to hide from Braeden and Stiles for the last few weeks. He excuses himself from the room and heads upstairs to grab it. It looks a little worse for wear; the plastic is torn in a number of spots, showing peeks of the old newspaper he’d gathered for wrapping paper. He pulls both presents from the bag and smooths down the wrinkles as best as he can. The gifts still look a little pathetic; he’d watched his mother wrap gifts every Christmas, passed her scissors and wrapping paper as he observed, but he was never very good at putting his observations into practice. 

Still, given the circumstances, he's sure that Stiles and Braeden will understand.

When he goes back into the living room, Braeden has set aside her shotgun and is pursuing the book Stiles abandoned. Stiles is sprawled out with his head on her thigh, absently toying with a slightly rusted multi-tool, frowning when one of the knives refuses to budge from its spot. 

They look incredibly peaceful together, almost domestic. If it weren’t for the weapons scattered around the room or the faint smell of rotting flesh that still clings to their backpacks, Derek could almost pretend that this is one of the days he dreamed about, back when they were still trying to figure out the ins and outs of the new thing forming between them, in the weeks before the world splintered and cracked.

“I have something for you. Both of you,” he says, joining them on the floor and placing their respective gifts on the floor. He’d been unable to find gift tags anywhere, so their names are written on top in permanent marker, the black ink smeared in a number of spots. 

“A present?” Stiles asks, sitting up and leaning perilously close to the fire. Thankfully, he adjusts his position before Derek can yank him away. “What’s the occasion?” 

“It’s Christmas. I think,” Derek replies. “I’ve been trying to keep track, but I think I'm off by a few days.” 

“I think you’re right,” Braeden says. “It _feels_ right, doesn’t it?” Stiles shrugs and glances towards the window. In between the cracks in the boards, it’s easy to see that the glass is iced over. 

“It looks like Christmas, so I’m calling it Christmas,” he says, reaching out and taking the package with his name on it. His ragged fingernails easily tear through the paper. There’s a copy of _Watchmen_ and _V for Vendetta_ inside and after Stiles throws the wrapping paper in the fire, he starts paging through them, fingers ruffling the slightly bent pages. 

“Whoa,” Stiles murmurs under his breath. “How’d you manage to sneak these past me?” 

“You were too busy scoping out the vending machines,” Braeden says, glancing up and winking at Derek before slowly tearing the paper off her present. It’s a new gun holster, wrapped in tissue paper, the brown leather still shining, its surface inlaid with decorative spirals. Braeden makes an appreciative noise and runs her fingers along its surface. 

“I wasn’t expecting this,” she says, sitting up on her knees and fastening the holster around her hips. It seems to fit perfectly and she smiles, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to to Derek’s lips. “Thank you. I’m sorry that I don’t have anything for you. For either of you.” 

“Me neither,” Stiles sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Not yet, at least. I’ve been working on something for awhile now, but y’know. Distractions.” 

“It’s fine,” Derek says, moving closer to them even though the heat of the fire is nearly overwhelming. He didn’t expect anything in return; the gifts were more meant to be a spark of hope, a break from the life-threatening tedium that normally plagues their days. “I’m just glad you liked them.” 

“You’ve saved me from hours of boredom,” Stiles replies, sitting up and kissing Derek more on the chin than the mouth. “I will finish your presents soon. I swear.”

“No rush,” Braeden replies, stretching her legs back out, which Stiles immediately takes advantage of by dropping his head back into her lap. “I’m pretty sure we aren’t going anywhere for a few days.” 

“Not if I can help it,” Derek says, sliding back in between Braeden and the couch. He’s starting to get hungry and the need to do another perimeter check is gnawing at him, like an itch he needs to scratch. But for now, he manages to tamp it down and he picks up another novel that Stiles discarded on the floor. He holds it with one hand while he drops his other to Braeden’s leg, where it also brushes up against Stiles’ head. 

There may be roamers just beyond the reach of his hearing and the only thing they have for dinner is canned food, but it’s still one of the best Christmases he’s ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
